Sunday, December 5, 2010

I can't wait for this to be our day...get tissues

4 comments:

Hi Erika! I'm so excited for you guys!! What agency are you using and what age are you asking for? girl or boy? There's a great yahoo group of central florida families who have or are adopting if you're interested in joining: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/centralfletfamilies/

Every once in a while the members get together for picnics, lunches, etc. and the kids get to know each other.

I hope to meet you in person someday! Hope all is going well with your adoption process.

We are going through AGCI (All God's Children International). Who did you choose? So far they have been so good to us. We are hoping for an infant and no preference on gender. Did you have a preference or was Ethan the gender you applied for?

Our local MSW who is doing our home study was telling us there is a large community here in Central Florida. Thanks for the info! I think this is great to have this extended family. Oh, and our MSW said the community is mostly Christian families which is really fun too!

We will have to meet sometime. The process feels daunting at times and when I look at people's timelines it can feel like we are years away, but I pray it moves by fast.

We went with America World Adoption Agency (AWAA). They have an office in Orlando, many years of experience and have their own Social Workers so we were pretty much sold by the time we went to one of their seminars. But the most important thing is that you trust your agency and feel comfortable with them, and it seems like you have found that in AGCI...and that's a huge blessing in itself!

I know the process is daunting at first. And I won't lie...there are plenty of tears along the way. But know that God wants you to move forward with the adoption and HE will open doors in a miraculous way. You'll see!!

We asked for either gender, 0-12 months. So very similar to your request. But secretly, I was really hoping for a boy!! hehe

Have you ever been to our Celebration church? We would love to have you over for lunch sometime. We can either do a Saturday or Sunday. Let me know the first weekend you have available (including this weekend) and we'll take it from there and see where we land!

Your MSW is right. There is a huge community of adoptive parents in Central Florida, mostly Christian, who are or have adopted from Ethiopia. Jeremy and I were just talking about that the other day of how when we first made this decision we didn't know a soul who had adopted from Ethiopia. That in itself made it scarier for us to take the first step. But since then we have found SO many people online who are in the process or have adopted and that reassures us so much because it means our children will have other friends who have been through similar situations. What a blessing!!!

Anyways...now that I have completely written a sermon on your page!! I'm so excited for you guys. Many blessings on your journey!

Sorry so late! The next couple weeks are wild with the holidays. I haven't been to Celebration church but Michael and Becca have told us how nice it is. We're definitely going to have to come visit! Once we get through the holidays...lets definitely get together.

I hope your day is better today after the news you received. Hang in there! Prayers for ya!

I'M PRAYING FOR GINA & ABBY

Buy a Brick. Build a School.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved."